askhistorians

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How important was the Nation of Islam and its unique understanding of Islam and history to the shaping of Americans' perception of Muslims in the late 1950s to 60s? If a white American in 1960 for example heard the term "Muslim" how likely is it they would imagine an NOI member?	6
What do we know about Indo-Greek & Greco-Bactrian religious beliefs? Does the mixed Greek & indigenous symbols in coinage & art from these regions point to religious syncretism or simply Greek religion existing in parallel with Hinduism/Buddhism/etc.?	6
When did the fictional device of the sewer large enough (and safe enough) for people to explore like catacombs first come about?	6
Firefighters have existed for thousands of years but what about fire stations? If not when and where do structures resembling our modern fire stations appear?	6
Accountants and lawyers give advice but doctors give orders. How did physicians (and medical researchers), especially in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, get imbued with so much authority over their patients/subjects, who seemed to have almost zero choice in their own care?	6
What did Indian thinkers & grammarians think about the origins of & relationships between languages before modern linguistics? Did they recognize that the Dravidian/southern Indian languages had a different origin from the others?	6
Was the United Farm Workers always ostensibly a Mexican-American organization? How did early members react to the Chicano imagery, especially since one of the two original founding organizations was mostly Filipino-American?	6
Today tourists visit Belfast specifically to see the legacy of the Troubles and the current state of Irish sectarian affairs. When did the Troubles become a marketable thing to tourists? Was there "extreme tourism" in the 20th century, a la North Korea/the Andean death highway?	5
How pessimistic was the average American (or anyone in the English-speaking world) in their Cold War expectations between 1950s to early 70s? Was the received humor of a film like Dr. Strangelove primarily based on its pure absurdity or the irony of it reflecting a possible or likely future?	5
To what extent did there exist a "samurai code" before 18th century formulations like Hagakure?	5

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